American Go E-Journal » Park Jieun

The 2nd Bingsheng Cup came and went this week and Park Jieun 9P chalked up another international win. The Bingsheng Cup is a competition for the strongest female go players worldwide. First held last year, the tournament takes place at Qionglong Mountain, Suzhou, China and is also called the Qionglong Cup by some people. China, Japan and Korea, of course, fielded strong teams. However, being a truly international competition, competitors from other regions were also able to qualify. North America was represented by the USA’s Feng Yun 9P, who runs the Feng Yun Go School in New Jersey (she won the North American qualifier tournament for the Bingshen by defeating Yinli Wang 6D; Cathy Li 1P lost to Feng Yun by forfeit in the final on September 28. ). Joanne Missingham 5P once again played for Oceania and Natalaia Kovaleva 5D for Europe. Unfortunately all three of these players were knocked out in the first round and Missingham wasn’t able to repeat her impressive feat from the 1st Bingsheng Cup. In last year’s tournament Missingham fought all the way to the final, only losing to Korea’s Park Jieun 9P. This year, Park eventually faced China’s Tang Yi 2P in the final on October 13, 2011, but once again Park was too strong.

Feng Yun 9P’s game is below. More games and photos are available in Go Game Guru’s 2nd Bingsheng Cup report.

The 9th Jeongganjang Cup ended today with a final showdown between Rui Naiwei 9P (playing for China) and Park Jieun 9P of Korea.

Rui resigned after 160 moves, but not before plenty of middle game excitement. With this, the Korean women’s baduk team have won their fourth Jeongganjang Cup. Last week Rui stood alone against four Korean opponents and managed to fight her way to Park in a three game streak. Unfortunately for Rui she fell just short of making it four wins (in four days) and taking the Cup back for China.

Rui Naiwei (left) and Park Jieun review the game

A special mention needs to go to Moon Dowon 2P, who set a new record by winning seven consecutive matches in stage one of this tournament. Moon single handedly eliminated most of the Japanese and Chinese teams, setting things up nicely for Korea.